Set a guard over my mouth.
—Psalm 141:3
Gossip insinuates that we are a cut above the person we’re trashing. It may make us feel superior, but it doesn’t make us superior.
Jesus charged us to extract the two-by-four from our own eye before presumptuously reaching to flick a speck of sawdust from another’s eye.
Judging others is arrogant, contemptuous, cocky. “Who are you to judge your neighbor?” (Jas. 4:12).
Before diving into back-fence gossip ask these questions:
Is what I am about to say going to help me?
Is it going to help the person I’m telling it to?
Is it going to help the person I’m telling it about?
Or these:
Is it true?
Is it kind?
Is it necessary?
Dragging someone down
never lifts you up.